Are You Still Selling Tab?
This week, the CNN Business website features an article titled, “He killed some of Coke’s most beloved brands. And he’s doing it all over again.” Bankers should reflect on Coke’s initiatives and adapt them to their banks…
More Rapid Industry Consolidation Is Inevitable
The chart accompanying this newsletter shows the decline in total banks from 1966-2017. Since then, the total has declined further. In 2021 the FDIC lists 4,983 banks at the start of the year, down about 100…
Advice to Vendors: Rules of the Road
Over the years we have advised dozens of companies hoping to sell their services to banks and FIs in multiple areas, often involving platforms tied to credit cards, business lending, commercial finance, or cash…
For the 100th Time: Small Businesses Offer Banks a Great Opportunity
I mentioned to a consulting friend that I had seen a BAI executive report with the title “Big Stakes in Small Business Banking” followed by the tag line “SMBs…
Name Changes: “A Rose by Any Other Name” or Lipstick on a Pig
Name changing and rebranding has become a big business for consultants and a big distraction for some business leaders. Bluntly, these changes often blow…
The Bureaucratic Industrial Complex
What is going on with the growth of bureaucracies at banks? Are internal staff bureaucracies now in control of most banks and other financial services players? And has the current focus on ESG…
Are You An A**hole?
Let me be clear. I am not suggesting you are, but the new nominee for the head of the OCC said precisely that. As quoted in the New York Post, Saule Omarova views banking quite differently than any banker I know…
Banks Don’t Change…Unless
Last week I had a call with a technology vendor that aims to provide banks with a solution which, if effectively implemented, could significantly increase revenues and profits from a business area that many banks either overlook or have managed ineffectively.
Your Technology Needs a Person
Just as banks use branch “shoppers,” to test service and highlight areas for improvement, they need tech shoppers to determine whether their gee-whiz technology solutions work. In more cases than they know, digital and automated approaches fail to…
Audit Your Consultants
A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a young analyst who had been given an assignment at his company, a startup that had become a unicorn. As with many other unicorns, the company was cash flow negative. His job was to look at major cost areas and highlight…